An Ruyi couldn’t hide her surprise. The mild, courteous youth she thought she knew carried a past like a blade under silk. She regretted skimming that report.

Sitting where she sat, An Ruyi wouldn’t claim clean hands. To keep the casino steady, she’d used every tool against gang crews, shadowed by dirty work. But back then Changqing was barely grown. How could he have dismembered an adult?

“This case reeks of doubt,” Luo Huo said, voice low like thunder behind clouds. “Everyone suspects Changqing, yet there’s no proof. His alibi, witnesses, evidence—airtight. Without illegal police tactics, he’d be out.”

The case stuck in his mind like a burr. As lead investigator, he rechecked witnesses and combed for physical traces. He even tailed Changqing, a hunter in hush, because if Changqing had done it, he was dangerous.

He found nothing, not a thread. Either Changqing burned every trail to ash, or he wasn’t the culprit. Luo Huo didn’t buy that. His gut beat like a drum—Changqing was the one.

He had no interest in forcing penance. If anyone tried to violate his kin, he’d crush them on the spot, mercy like frost.

“About the illegal police moves,” An Ruyi said, a smile like a veil. “You said it sparked a big corruption case? I think I remember. Our family cut ties with partners and bled money.”

She lifted the cup; the coffee’s heat had cooled to autumn. Back then she’d just graduated, green as spring willow, and knew little of family business. She’d only heard rumors.

She’d learned a little of Changqing and burned the report, a flame of trust. She wanted to hire without second-guessing, to use people without seeds of suspicion.

It left Luo Huo to carry the load. He smiled bitterly, the curve like a scar. The young lady hadn’t truly read the file. As a bodyguard, he couldn’t scold. He could only lay out the bones.

“They coerced confession,” he said, contempt like grit. “Two other families added poison. All three bribed scum to ‘give Changqing special care’ during interrogation. The result writes itself.”

He sneered, the look sharp as a knife. During a crackdown, you wait for the first wave to pass, then move. They wormed in at the start and tripped the alarms.

No evidence means no evidence, a cold moon over dark water.

Even faking testimony, without a body what can they do? Beat Changqing to death, and they still won’t find their kids. Scum stays scum. In a crackdown, restraint is survival.

Those tycoons could only buy middling connections. At higher rungs, no one dared touch aftercare. Inside the police, currents collided. Rivals watched for slips like hawks.

The bought thugs saw money and reached, defying the wind from above. That was courting death.

The two families ate bitter fruit too. They could dump bribes on fall guys. But for a long stretch, the upper echelons pressed them hard, like a vise on bone. Smart tricks became self-inflicted wounds.

“They were ‘careful,’” he said, mouth dry as dust. “Phone book to chest, baton wrapped in newspaper. They thought no marks would show.”

“But a martial artist like Changqing sees through shadows. Even if they left no obvious bruises, he could make the right marks himself.”

Their target selection was a joke, a blade swung at mist. No evidence, no case. They let themselves be goaded, blood heat drowning reason. Normal folk should question, at least once.

If trust is that blind, Luo Huo could do business with them all day.

Not to mention, their sons tried to assault a woman in public and plotted abduction. That alone earns years behind bars and rough ‘care’ from the big brothers.

He wasn’t clean either. Precisely because of that, he loathed men who preyed on sisters like wolves.

“In the end, their superiors got dragged in,” he said. “Layer by layer, inside the system and out. During the crackdown, none escaped. If Changqing had money for a lawyer, he’d have flayed them after.”

An Ruyi nodded, thoughts gathering like storm clouds. She’d seen Changqing’s frightening strength. Now, hearing this, her confidence in him deepened like a well.

“I admire his mind more,” Luo Huo said, worry like a fine crack. “If he did it, he avoided trails, kidnapped, killed, arranged, planted an alibi. Not a step out of place.”

“Then forty-eight hours under torture, with no collapse. His will is iron wrapped in silk.”

If not for his sister, a twenty-something youth might have become an unassailable monster. Among martial artists, that temperament climbs high peaks.

He felt lucky Changqing stood on their side, like a mountain at their back. He also worried. Could Miss An hold down a man that ruthless?

The thought rose, then he crushed it. He was a bodyguard, trusted but bounded. Beyond that line was not his place.

“Poor soul,” An Ruyi sighed, voice soft as rain. “Luo Huo, place people around the hospital. Quietly. No ripples. He’s likely resting. Protect his sister.”

“Yes, Miss,” he said. “They’re already in place. While you were negotiating, I couldn’t reach Changqing. I dispatched a team. They’re only observing. The hospital isn’t alarmed.”

It was a stopgap. With Young Master Li’s reach, he could trace Changqing’s ties in minutes. When the sheet of intel lands, exposure follows. They could only add a shield.

“Good,” An Ruyi said, a rare ease warming her face. “If a transfer is possible, arrange it. But we follow Changqing’s word. You can go.”

Luo Huo nodded and left, a shadow slipping through a door.

In a stripped-down apartment, Changqing opened his eyes. The tap water had turned from knife-cold to river-cool. After a night of battle, his energy was spent to dust.

If he’d forgotten to lock the door, scavengers might have swept the place clean. Not that there was much worth stealing.

He shook his heavy head, then rose from the tub, water sliding like falling glass. He loved cold soaks after exhaustion, a habit like winter. Bad for the body, but he clung to it.

Maybe the bite of ice dragged old memories from their cave, so he kept doing it.

He reached for his phone on the rack. It was years old, housed in a scuffed case, cared for like a worn talisman. He wanted little; he lived simple.

It was almost noon.

“Sis, what’s for—”

He stopped, the word like a stone dropped in a well. Then he caught himself, grabbed a towel, and walked out, face twisted between smile and grief.

He stepped from the bathroom into a modern apartment, all clean lines like new snow. Few furnishings, but the design had care. He looked to the kitchen.

Empty. No smoke, no clatter, no home-cooked heat.

The room was big and bare, with only him inside, a lone lamp in an empty hall.

He’d lived like this for years.

A hollow tugged his chest. He sat by the floor-to-ceiling window and looked at the city. Concrete towers rose like cliffs, a steel forest choking breath.

People marched to its rhythm. Stray one beat, and the forest pressed you flat.

He’d lived by that rhythm once.

Traditional martial arts—so what? This is modern rule-of-law, not a world where a warrior cuts down a thousand.

He didn’t spit on society. His steady life flowed from it. A gun ends most fights, clean and cruel.

In front of a bullet, what can martial arts do? You don’t outrun lead. He wasn’t Superman.

Against a gunman, he’d never let the muzzle drift beyond two meters. Past that range, he runs. With bare fists and a long knife, the options are thin.

Martial arts still rely on the person. That couple taught him self-strength, a seed planted deep. Big shoulders aren’t always strong. Stick-thin is certainly weak.

Since he understood anything, he forged his body, ten winters and summers. He still hammers at his limits, chasing the edge.

By rights, his path should be bright. Skill in his hands, quickness in his mind. Police, military, either would carry him upward. The couple’s connections were anchors.

But he walked the opposite road, like a boat turning against current.

He rose and took a jar of candied fruit from a cabinet. He entered the small alcove.

A spirit tablet and an incense burner stood there, quiet as old stone. The incense had gone out.

He set the fruit down, lit sticks with steady fingers, and bowed. Smoke curled like prayer.

“Father. Mother. Your son is unfilial.”

He searched for words and found only that truth, heavy as a mountain.

“Be a person with upright qi,” the man had said, voice like a clear bell. “Do any trade. Just don’t become a lackey for wicked men.”

The sentence still rang at his ear. The gentle scholar was gone.

If their spirits knew he’d become a dog for “evil men,” entered a dirty line, they’d execute him on the spot, anger like thunder.

Changqing didn’t hate the rich. Within this order, wealth signals recognition by society. What’s proper or improper can’t be judged by a few street curses.

But for that man, his moral bar wouldn’t allow Changqing to walk this path.

Helplessness sat cold in his gut, like a river stone sunk in winter water. What else could Changqing do?

He wouldn't pretend that doing it for money was righteous, but hundreds of thousands in surgery fees loomed like a cliff. How was a poor student supposed to climb it?

He never hoped those relatives would lend a hand. When news of that couple’s death spread, they swarmed in like locusts. In the end, Changqing sent them away bloodied, the air sharp with iron.

Maybe the world keeps score, karma piling like storm clouds. If there must be thunder, let it strike me.

After he bowed to his father, his gaze slid to the tablet beside it, a sigh drifting through his eyes like wind through bamboo.

This hard, domineering skill in his bones—his mother forged it, hammer on anvil.

Unlike his talkative father, she wore no motherly halo. His clearest memory was the daily rain of blows, her whip speaking for her.

Where his father was all words, his mother was stone-quiet. Yet on nights when pain gnawed him awake, she set down silent comfort like a warm lamp in the dark.

To his mother, Changqing had a thousand things knotted in his throat like fish bones. He bowed three times in silence, waves rising and falling.

With reverent hands, he planted the bundle of incense in the burner, smoke curling up like pale dragons.